HOUSE AND GARDEN 
I 02 
Fill the flats with one part garden loam to one part leaf-mold, 
adding enough sand so that the mixture will crumble apart after 
being squeezed in the hand 
and regularly, you may safely go ahead with the assurance that 
your efforts will bring success. 
There are three things you will want in the way of accessories. 
First of all, your seed-boxes, or “flats,” as the florist terms them. 
These are open wooden boxes three to four inches deep, and of any 
convenient size. For a small garden such as the one we planned 
in the last number, one or two dozen will be a great plenty, and 
the easiest way to get them will be to have your grocer bring you 
a few soap or cracker boxes, with the tops. If you can, get them 
After sowing the seed either in rows or broadcast, sift over them 
enough fine soil to cover them to a depth of two or three times 
their diameter 
all the same size. Saw these up lengthwise into three-inch to 
four-inch sections, and bottom each, being careful to draw out 
beforehand any nails or wire staples in the way of the saw. Bore 
or knock a few small holes in the bottom of each, for drainage, and 
they are ready for use. Better make them all at one time, and 
be done with that job. One biscuit-box flat will hold about one 
hundred transplanted seedlings, so you can estimate how many 
you will need. It will pay to grow about twice as many plants 
as you expect to use, so that you can select only the best for your 
After sifting the soil covering over the seeds press the "whole area 
fir ml y with a flat board. A shingle will do, but yoWcan easily 
make a firming board like this 
March, 1910 
garden. Next, you will want a sieve, for sifting dirt. If you are 
so fortunate as to possess an ash-sifter, that will be just the 
thing. If not, take a small shallow box, and in place of the 
bottom nail on a piece of wire netting, about four meshes to 
the inch. Probably you already have a watering-can. Get the 
finest sprinkler you can for it, or a rubber bulb sprinkler at the 
florist’s or seed store, costing not more than fifty or seventy-five 
cents. 
These three things — flats, a sieve, and fine-spray watering-can 
— are all you will need in the way of implements. 
Next comes the question of soils. I might repeat here much 
of what was said in regard to temperature, to the effect that the 
ideal soil is not essential to the starting of good healthy, stocky 
vegetable plants. They will sprout and grow well in any good 
friable soil which will permit the water to drain through it quickly, 
and not pack and stay wet. But I shall describe the preparation 
of the best sort of soil, and the little effort required to make it 
ready will be well repaid. Take one part light garden loam—the 
more “humus” (rotted sod and vegetable matter) in it the better; 
mix with it an equal amount of leaf-mold, chip dirt, or similar 
material, and add enough coarse sand so that the mixture will 
fall apart after being compressed in the hand. The leaf-mold 
may be got in any hollow in the woods, or by any old fence or 
corner where leaves collect and rot. Or the decayed chips and 
bark which you can scrape up at the wood-pile will do. Mix and 
turn your pile thoroughly, and you are ready to sow your seed. 
Cover the bottom of a flat with about half-an-inch of coal 
ashes, chip dirt, or any similar coarse substance. Sift on through 
the sieve about two inches of your mixed soil. Jar the flat to 
settle the dirt firmly, and smooth off level, without pressing, with 
the hand or a short flat stick — say a piece of shingle. Pieces of 
shingle may also be used to divide the box up into sections, for one- 
third of a biscuit box flat will give you plenty of seedlings if you 
require only a few dozen or a hundred plants of each vegetable. 
This will be better than using three small boxes on account of 
taking less room and trouble, and “drying out” will not occur 
so quickly. Now sow your seed evenly on the prepared surface. 
Don’t be afraid to put them in quite thick; they will not all 
sprout. Press them firmly into the soil with a small flat piece of 
board, and sift or sprinkle on a light covering of soil, not more 
than two or three times, in depth, the diameter of the seed sown. 
Water thoroughly, being careful not to wash the soil, thus uncov¬ 
ering the seed. Give the box a thorough soaking, but stop as 
soon as the water ceases to be absorbed readily by the soil. 
For the next four or five days the seed-box will stand a good 
deal of heat. Germination will be hastened if you put it on a 
radiator, or even on the back part of the kitchen range at night — 
just so that there is not heat enough to rapidly dry out the earth. 
Watch your boxes closely and, whenever the soil begins to look 
dried out, give a thorough watering. In four or five days, or ten 
at most, if you have supplied enough bottom heat, the seeds of 
cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, tomato, etc., will be beginning to 
push aside their earth blanket, or, if they have sprouted evenly, 
to push up the whole surface in patches, like miniature tents. 
From now on your seedlings will want all the sunlight you 
can give them, and the higher the temperature, up to sixty degrees 
at night, the better. See to it that the boxes never get dried out. 
On bright sunny days, for an hour or two in the middle of the day, 
give them all the fresh air you can. If it is cold outside, be careful 
not to let it blow directly on the little seedlings. This item of 
fresh air is of great importance. Stale air will make sickly plants 
as it does sickly people. Be careful to confine your watering as 
much as possible to the mornings of bright sunny days. Withhold 
it altogether during dark cloudy weather, unless the dirt is getting 
actually dried out, and then give it sparingly. 
In three or four weeks or more, according to the variety and 
the growth made, your little seedlings will be ready to be taken 
